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For each pixel, generally one byte is used for each channel while the fourth byte (if present) is being used either as an alpha channel data or simply ignored.

I know in some image formats (tiff,png) a fourth channel can be used for alpha.

But think about it, what should alpha information do in video memory (except for making you able to see the Bacterians in time)? I am convinced that it's value is simply ignored, and the only purpose for the byte is memory alignment.

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Okay, so Windows 95 can use 32 bit color, news to me. The million dollar question is, what are you going to do with an extra billion colors that you can't see anyway, and most video games use a fraction of a billion colors, same goes for all Jpegs (usually only thousands of colors) and most other formats? What's the point?

oh yeah, I forgot, it just another gimmick to rip off consumers. "Here, buy this graphics card with billion of colors, it doesn't matter if you're brain can only make out 7 million of them, it's got Billions!" Just send us your money now, or else you won't be cool and people will mock you for your un-coolness. They will call you a stupid id*** Windows 98 user who's missing out on a couple billion invisible colors.

You know what, I hope they invent something with Trillions of colors. Then everybody with 32 bit (billions of colors) won't be hip and cool anymore. Doesn't matter if the human brain can only see 7 million colors, it's the fact that I paid $900 for my graphic card that gives me bragging rights over the other mouth breathing idiots.

I really, really, really, really, hope that computers start becoming out of date in like 3 months in the near future. I'd be interested in seeing just how long people will buy into all this garbage before they finally figure out that they're slaves. Come on people, faster, faster, faster, more progress. Now now now.

FYI, 32bit color or true color which should actually be called 24bit color is not billions of colors, it's just 16777216 colors (16 millions or so) and it exactly matches what monitors are capable of doing, 256 brightness levels per primary color or 8bit per color channel.

This is not a lot of colors and it is easy to prove: for example if you want to create a black to white gradient of 1600 pixels width you've only 256 shades of grey for doing so, or in other words you are lacking 1344 colors.

This is why all applications who create gradients are resorting to the artifice of dithering as to perceptually simulate more colors than a computer screen can actually display. If they weren't doing that, most gradients would suffer from banding. And everyone who has done a bit of serious photo editing knows how severely limited true color is, as they sooner or later bump into those annoying banding issues which easily crop up using certain tools.

As for the price of graphic cards, I don't think the are related to how many colors they can display but rather to what framerate they can achieve...

Please try have some grip on your subject, especially when you go into rants like this, as all you've managed to do is make yourself look like a fool.

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I don't see why it's such a big deal. Unless your system is running on hardware that's marginal even for 98, running 32 bit isn't going to slow performance enough to notice it. I've run 32 bit on all my 98 units save 1, my old 98FE HP which was 24bit. Using the built in Intel 82845 graphics, this PC runs quite well at 1600X900 resolution, 32 bit using an AOC F22 monitor.

I won't claim to know the exact difference between 24 bit and 32 bit. What I do know is that on mine, images look more natural at 32 bit than at 24 bit. To me, that's all that matters.

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Didn't mean to be a jerk in this thread, was just in a bad mood for a few days, was getting zero sleep. My mom had a heart attack and she was in the hospital for 3 days, not sure if she would have to have open heart surgery again, she already has a mechanical heart valve. She's better now, but basically for almost 36 hours she was in a hospital bed with chest and back pain, while the doctors gave her morphine and nitro glyserine, and ran a bunch of tests waiting for her EKG results to improve. Well, she's better now.

Was just venting earlier. Dont mind my ramblings, it's nothing personal intended to anybody. Just had a lousy week.